When Medium Awareness meets music. There are quite a few songs in which the lyrics explicitly reference the fact that... well, it's a song. However, since listing every example that does this would be practically impossible, this trope limits the range to songs that don't just break the fourth wall, but, in fact, are pretty much all about the fact that they're songs.

Donny Loves Jenny opens with the very obvious "This is Our Theme Song".

Music

In Markoolio's song "Nostalgi", the verses are about nostalgia. The refrain, however, is an argument where Markoolio sings that he want the song to have a refrain - and the chorus sing a message about how he shouldn't bother because they can just record one later.

'Cause they market this song to young, impressionable, and insecure teenage girls 'Cause all you gotta say is "ooh baby, I love you" and "girl, I need you in my world" Yes, they market this song to young, impressionable, and insecure teenage girls 'Cause all they gotta do is find a sexually attractive man that can sing all the words

But played straight later in the same album with "#1 Radio $ingle", which actually IS a song about itself.

This is the part of the song where I talk about emotions

And this is the part of the song where I sing about how I feel so cold inside

And this is where my producer told me

To say "Yeah!" (yeah!)

"Only A Northern Song" by The Beatles, which is actually more about the dissonance in the song than the song itself.

George Harrison, who wrote "Only a Northern Song" (see above), used this trope again as a solo artist. He wrote "This Song" while legal action was underway regarding "My Sweet Lord/He's So Fine", saying in part:

This song ain't bad or good and as far as I know

Don't infringe on anyone's copyright so

This song we'll let be

Radiohead's "My Iron Lung", which was about Fan Dumb audiences who wanted to hear "Creep" and only "Creep". It's up to interpretation whether the song is talking about itself or a hypothetical song, though, in the relevant part:

The completely unrelated "Song About Nothing", by Andy Corwin, which even goes so far as to say that "the very idea for this song isn't even original".

Meanwhile, "Nothing to Say", written a couple years earlier by Carla Ulbrich, has most of the same thoughts as Corwin's song, up to and including hoping that, despite saying nothing, it'll become a hit due to its catchiness.

Dragon Road song — not Akira Kushida's, Dungeons & Dragons-themed filk one ("It was on the first of August...").

Sparks' "Strange Animal" is about someone escaping the police by somehow walking into a song, although it's never quite specified that it's the song you're now hearing. At one point he begins to criticize the very song he's now part of ("But this song lacks a heart \ comes off overly smart"), and in the end it seems that he murders everyone else in the song and tries to change it into something more to his liking ("You're in need of a fix \ of a total remix \ so I must kill you all").

The lyrics to King Crimson's song "Happy with What You Have to Be Happy With" from their album "The Power to Believe" is filled with this trope. Here is a sample:

And when I have some words

This is the way I'll sing -

Through a distortion box

To make them menacing

Yeah, then I'm gonna have to write a chorus

We're gonna need to have a chorus

And this seems to be as good as any other place to sing it till I'm blue in the face

"Hook" by Blues Traveler is entirely about itself, describing how the hook brings you back, confessing that he doesn't mean any of what he is singing, and how the lyrics affect the listener, among other things.

"Battle For Someone" goes into this territory slightly. The first verse is deeply cynical and bitter, the second verse is hopeful and optimistic. The third verse is about how the singer (and by extension most people) have to deal with both positive and negative attitudes. A line in the third verse spells it out: "The preceding verses are the two halves of my soul."

"Wild Swimming" by Martha Tilston contains a verse in which she tells the person to whom the song is directed, that she plans to write a song about him, in which she will compare him to wild swimming. That song is, presumably, the one being sung.

When this trope is applied to a whole genre, we get the Gaita Zuliana. There is a lot of songs about how itself is a traditional gaita song, how the song is more authentic and in a traditional style than others, and so on. Not that they doesn't hit other themes, but still a good third of all Gaita songs are or have some form of this trope.

As you might anticipate from the title, "A Song For Worm Quartet To Sing With TV's Kyle" by Worm Quartet featuring TV's Kyle. Which breaks the fourth wall even more than you might expect, since it also has Kyle singing about how he refuses to appear on the song because it's repetitive and lazily written... And pointing out that Shoebox must have realized he'd feel that way to begin with, because he was the one who wrote all of the lyrics.

Hey girl, you make me wanna write a song Sit you down, I'll sing it to you all night long I've had a melody in my head since she walked in here and knocked me dead Yeah girl, you make me wanna write a song And it goes like ooh, what I wouldn't do To write my name on your heart, get you wrapped in my arms baby all around you And it goes like hey, girl I'm blown away Yeah, it starts with a smile and it ends with an all night long slow kiss Yeah, it goes like this

"Partners, Brothers, and Friends" by the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band does this on the last verse:

The band says it can't stand My latest song, it's too personal But my first wife's second marriage blew up They had to get the dang thing annulled Well, if that ain't something to sing about You tell me what is And we'll give it a beat and put it on the street And we'll just might have another hit

This song could be in a commercial It's simple and acoustic so it's utterly non-threatening And it's pretty and sincere, and there's not too many words You can talk about insurance or a car *Beat* In all the spaces in between

And why do I write all my songs in the key of G? Be easier usin' another one like — umm-err-umm

Recorded and Stand-Up Comedy

"The Chicken Parmigiana Song" on The D-Generation's The Satanic Sketches album, about a singer in a crowded hotel:

I'm just a singer in a crowded hotel I only work here 'cause the money's steady Sometimes I think no one's listening to my song (over PA, drowning out singer) Number 26! Your chicken parmigiana is ready!

It's the opening song It doesn't have a title, no And it's not very long But it's the starting point for our musical

Similarly, the reworked-with-vocals version of the Overture for Groovelily's Striking 12, with such lines as "Welcome to the overture..." and "This is an important theme / You will hear it later on..."

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